By Amanda Nicol | Ministry Intern serving at Gresham UMC in Gresham, OR
I estimate that I have read through the Book of Psalms several times over, although I no longer keep track. What I love most about the psalms is their ability to speak to the range of basic human experience: death, despair, joy, gratitude, frustration, grief, loneliness and love. As a whole, the psalms comprise a very human piece of literature and are the one place in the Scriptures where I feel absolutely free to abandon context and history and read my personal experience into the words on the page.
Now admittedly that practice does not constitute good exegesis, but I rarely purpose to exegete the psalms; rather, their ancient poetry is the place where I most frequently, apart from music, meet my God in the raw fullness of human emotion. I do not go to the psalms seeking answers to my questions, but instead go seeking the comfort of the divine presence in the shared experiences of humanity.
This is all to say that when we three interns were discussing what we felt led to reflect on this month and Rachael suggested the theme of patience, putting forth Psalm 119:145-149, I read the psalmist’s half-pleading, half-imperious words and thought, “Good grief, I’m pretty sure I uttered those very same words just last week.”
I used to believe very strongly that God held in reserve a preordained plan for my life. Certainly the psalmist seems to suggest so: “Your eyes saw my embryo, and on your scroll every day was written that was being formed for me, before any of them had yet happened” (Psalm 139:16 CEB). And it is true that, in much of the popular literature you can pick up in a Christian bookstore or pull from the internet, God is depicted as The Puppeteer, directing every minute detail of creation. There is no need to worry then, their authors reason, because God already knows what we are going to do, and because He is a good God, He will work everything out for the good of those who love Him (Romans 8:28).
I would be dishonest if I did not admit that on certain days, when I grow weary from the complicated weight of discernment, I wish for the simplicity of such a theological model. Those are the days when I pray, Lord, since you are clearly so much wiser than I, please just tell me what to do, and I will do it.
For a long time I would beat myself up if, when I posed my righteous questions to heaven, all I received was silence. Clearly, I reasoned, I am doing something wrong, and if I can only figure out what that is, God will then answer and I can continue along this little journey called discernment and arrive where God intends me to be. When extra prayer and attentiveness yielded little, I began to harbor some resentment towards God for messing with what I desired to be a clear and efficient process. My patience grew very thin. I have been waiting long enough, Lord. Are you even listening to me?
During our first meeting together, my spiritual director painted a lovely metaphor for me that I have reflected on frequently since. She described a room full of furniture. When you are a very small child, she said, your parents might instruct you not to stick your finger in a light socket, but when you enter the room, you naturally fixate on the light socket; it is the only thing you notice about the room. However, as you grow older and are given more freedom to explore, you gradually start to notice other things in the room: a chair you can sit in, a light you can turn on, a carpet you can lie down on.
Perhaps for a time, like a parent with a young child, God holds our hand in our faith journey and offers us very concrete steps to take. But as we grow older and more mature in our faith, He gives us more freedom because He trusts us not to wander from the foundational principles we were raised on (1 Corinthians 3). Instead of just telling us what is and is not okay to do, God now begins to pose questions for us and invites us to answer. He offers us the incredible freedom of choice and then, smiling (at least, that’s what I imagine He does), steps back and watches what we will make of it.
So now I am coming to understand that all the times I perceived my question of “God, what do you want me to do?” to be met with total silence, that silence was really God asking, “I don’t know. What do you want to do?”
Initially, this new way of perceiving the will of God annoyed me and made me distinctly uncomfortable. It certainly made the process of discernment that much harder. But as I have moved out of the doorway and cautiously begun to explore the “room” God has invited me into, I have felt moved and awed by the idea of a God who loves me and trusts me enough to converse with me about my calling and my future. While I still struggle daily with impatience and wishing the process could be more straightforward, I am assured that, in the end, this slow and messy work of discernment will ultimately yield something beautiful and life-giving.
Amanda is a twenty-something Spokane, Washington native recently transplanted to the Portland, Oregon area. She graduated from the University of Puget Sound in 2012, where she was actively involved in campus ministry. When she is not reading too many books or watching too much Netflix, she is learning how to let herself be surprised and loved by God as she explores what it means to be called as a Christian in the world today. She is currently serving as a Ministry Resident at Gresham United Methodist Church in Gresham, Oregon under the mentorship of Dr. Steve Lewis.
